THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION 113 



misuse of time and money, as far as the future 

 prospects of the nation are concerned. These steps 

 in our educational policy, taken in connection with the 

 alterations in the quality and number of the children 

 who are affected by it, are worth more consideration 

 than they have yet received. 



We hear a good deal nowadays about the advantages 

 of co-education as opposed to the seminary type of 

 upbringing. If we accept the views expressed above 

 as to the methods and aims of education, there is every 

 reason why the two sexes should share equally and at 

 the same time and place in the acquisition of the 

 necessary knowledge, as they would naturally do in 

 the ordinary intercourse of family life. As men and 

 women they must work together, and as boys and girls 

 they may well drink at the same sources of wisdom. 

 It is when we come to the problems of training for the 

 purpose of gaining a livelihood which has become the 

 predominant feature of our English educational system 

 that a separation of the two sexes seems essential. 



It is often said that the great fault of our educational 

 system is that it does not take sufficient account of the 

 probable future occupations of the scholars, and that 

 it fails to prepare them to exercise any definite craft or 

 profession. The truth seems to be that, from 1870 

 to within a few years of the present time, the 

 whole population were trained as if clerkships or 

 some sort of clerical situation were the only open- 

 ings to which a boy or girl could look forward. 

 To read, to write, to add, to have an inaccurate recol- 

 lection of some of the principal historical episodes and 



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